Four Tidbinbilla Station Directors –
Mike Dinn 1988-94, Tom Reid 1970-88, Don Gray 1967-70, Peter Churchill 1994-2007. (It’s also a photo of 2 HSK StaDirs and 1 Deputy.)
From Mike Dinn, taken May 2008 at the funeral service for Monica Flint. (The Flint family owns the land around CDSCC.)

The Station Gardener / Groundsman, Bill Shaw kept the grounds in amazing condition – an oasis of order in the midst of the Australian bush.
Photo from the Apollo 11 staff photo.

October 2010

Early in the life of the station, Bruce Withey took two photos from the Coll Tower – one with a telephoto lens. Click the image for a 2MB composite of the two. Note the passive repeater on Dead Man’s Hill.

On February 20, 1962Gerry O’Connor (centre) at Muchea Tracking Station became the first Australian to hail a space traveller when he established communications with Astronaut John Glenn on his first orbit, and then passed the circuit to Capcom Gordo Cooper (right).

And not forgetting the cost

Remembering the C47 Dakota which crashed near Muchea
during Project Mercury support.

On March 16 2006, during his talk at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra, Westinghouse Lunar TV Camera Manager Stan Lebar spoke about how the Westinghouse Color Camera was used to show the launch of Apollo 13 on April 11 1970.
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We are sad to report that Jack Garmanhas died in Houston, at the age of 72.

Jack’s “fifteen seconds of fame” (as he put it) came during the Apollo 11 powered descent to the lunar surface. Computer alarms from the LM computer threatened to abort the landing, but Jack, in the AGC Staff Support Room, called a “GO”. Steve Bales (“Guidance”) in the MOCR relayed the “GO” to Flight Director Gene Kranz. Jack was “the only person on the planet” who knew, straight away, what the 1202 and 1201 computer alarms meant.

Click the image to see a highly edited version of the broadcast, courtesy of the ABC. (23MB mp4 file.)

50th Anniversary of Down Under Comes Up Live

On November 25th 1966, viewers across the United Kingdom saw the first live television pictures to be sent by satellite from Australia – from the brand new OTC Earth Station at Carnarvon, via Intelsat IIa.